Sophist

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

THEODORUS: Here we are, Socrates, right on schedule after yesterday's agreement — and we've brought this gentleman with us, a visitor from Elea, one of the circle around Parmenides and Zeno, and very much a philosopher. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, Theodorus, it isn't a visitor you've brought but some god, without realizing it — as Homer has it. He says the gods, and not least the god of strangers, accompany men who have a decent sense of respect, watching over the outrages and the good order of mankind. So maybe this companion of yours is one of those higher powers, come to observe and expose how feeble we are in argument — a sort of god of refutation. THEODORUS: That's not our visitor's style, Socrates. He's more moderate than the people who make a serious business of quarreling. And in my view the man is no god at all — though he is godlike. That's what I call all philosophers. SOCRATES: And rightly so, my friend. But that breed, I suspect, is hardly easier to make out than the god's. These men — the genuine philosophers, not the counterfeits — appear in all sorts of guises, thanks to everyone else's ignorance, as they roam from city to city, looking down from above on the life below. To some people they seem worth nothing at all, to others worth everything; sometimes they show up looking like statesmen, sometimes like sophists, and sometimes they can give the impression of being completely out of their minds. But I'd be glad to ask our visitor, if he doesn't mind, what the people in his part of the world thought about all this, and what names they used.

THEODORUS: What things do you mean? SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher. THEODORUS: What exactly is your difficulty about them? What sort of question did you have in mind? SOCRATES: This: did they consider all these to be one thing, or two? Or did they distinguish three kinds, matching the three names, and attach one kind to each name? THEODORUS: I don't imagine he'll begrudge going through it. Or how shall we put it, sir? VISITOR: Just so, Theodorus. I don't begrudge it at all, and it's not hard to say that they counted them as three. But to define clearly what each of them is — that is no small task, and no easy one. THEODORUS: As luck would have it, Socrates, you've hit on questions very like the ones we happened to be pressing him with before we came here. And he made the same excuses to us then that he's making to you now — though he admits he has heard the whole matter thoroughly and hasn't forgotten it. SOCRATES: Then don't refuse us, sir, the first favor we ask. Just tell us this much: which do you generally prefer — to work through what you want to demonstrate on your own, in one long speech, or to do it through questions? That was the method I once saw Parmenides use, developing some magnificent arguments, when I was young and he was already a very old man. VISITOR: With a partner who responds easily and gives no trouble, Socrates, the way with another person is easier; otherwise, the way by oneself. SOCRATES: Then you may choose whomever you like from the company — they'll all answer you good-naturedly. But if you take my advice, you'll pick one of the young ones: Theaetetus here, or any of the others who suits you. VISITOR: Socrates, meeting you all for the first time as I am, I feel a certain embarrassment about turning our gathering into a long solo performance, spinning out an extended speech by myself or even addressing one to someone else, as if I were putting on a display. For the question as you've just put it is really not as small as one might hope from the way it was asked — it needs a very long discussion. On the other hand, to refuse you and these gentlemen, especially after what you've said, strikes me as unfriendly to a guest, even barbarous. As for Theaetetus, I accept him gladly as my partner in the discussion, both from my own earlier conversation with him and from your recommendation just now.

THEAETETUS: Then do that, sir, and as Socrates said, you'll be doing us all a favor. VISITOR: There's probably nothing more to be said on that point, Theaetetus. From here on, it seems, the discussion is to be with you. And if the length of it wears you down and becomes a burden, don't blame me — blame these friends of yours. THEAETETUS: I don't think I'll give out just yet. But if anything like that does happen, we'll bring in this other Socrates here — Socrates' namesake, my own age-mate and training partner; sharing hard work with me is nothing new to him. VISITOR: Well said. You can decide that privately as the discussion goes on. But together with me you must now investigate, beginning — so it seems to me — with the sophist: searching him out and making plain in words what on earth he is. At present, you see, you and I share only the name where he's concerned; the thing we each call by it we may well hold privately, each to ourselves. But on every subject one should always agree on the thing itself, through reasoned discussion, rather than on the mere name without any account. Now the tribe we're proposing to hunt is not the easiest thing in the world to grasp — the sophist. And in all great undertakings that have to be worked through properly, everyone has long agreed on the rule: practice first on small and easier cases before tackling the biggest ones. So here is my advice for the two of us, Theaetetus: since we've judged the sophist's kind a hard quarry to catch, let's first rehearse the method of hunting him on something easier — unless you can suggest some smoother road from somewhere. THEAETETUS: I can't. VISITOR: Then shall we go after some trivial thing and try to set it up as a model for the greater one? THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: What might we put forward that's easy to know and small, yet allows an account no less than the bigger subjects do? Say — an angler. Isn't he familiar to everyone, and hardly worth any great seriousness?

THEAETETUS: Just so. VISITOR: And yet I expect he offers us a method and an account not unsuited to our purpose. THEAETETUS: That would be good. VISITOR: Come on then, let's start with him from this end. Tell me: shall we set him down as a man with an art, or as someone without an art but having some other capacity? THEAETETUS: Without an art — certainly not. VISITOR: Well, of arts taken all together there are pretty much two kinds. THEAETETUS: How so? VISITOR: Farming, and all tending of any mortal body; then everything to do with what is compounded and fashioned — what we call an implement; and the art of imitation. All of these together would most justly be called by a single name. THEAETETUS: How, and by what name? VISITOR: Whenever someone brings into being something that did not exist before, we say the one who brings it is making, and the thing brought is being made. THEAETETUS: Right. VISITOR: And all the things we just went through had their capacity directed to exactly that. THEAETETUS: They did indeed. VISITOR: Then let's sum them up and call them the productive art. THEAETETUS: Agreed. VISITOR: Next after this, the whole class of learning and of getting to know things, and money-making, contest, and hunting: since none of these creates anything, but they take things that are or have come to be — capturing some of them by words and deeds, and refusing to let others be captured — for all these reasons every one of these parts would most fittingly be called a certain art of acquisition. THEAETETUS: Yes, that would fit. VISITOR: So, with all arts falling under acquisition or production, in which shall we place angling, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Under acquisition, obviously. VISITOR: And aren't there two kinds of acquisitive art? One is exchange between willing parties, through gifts and hire and purchase; the rest, which captures things either by deeds or by words, would be the art of capture? THEAETETUS: So it appears from what we've said. VISITOR: Well then — shouldn't capture be cut in two? THEAETETUS: Where? VISITOR: Setting down all the open kind as contest, and all the secret kind as hunting. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: And it would be unreasonable not to cut hunting in two as well. THEAETETUS: Say how. VISITOR: Dividing off one part for the lifeless class and one for the living. THEAETETUS: Of course — if both exist.

VISITOR: How could they not exist? And we should let the hunting of lifeless things go — it has no name, apart from some parts of diving and a few other trifles like that — and call the other, since it is the hunting of living creatures, animal-hunting. THEAETETUS: So be it. VISITOR: And of animal-hunting mightn't we fairly say there's a double form: one for the walking kind, divided into many forms and names — land-hunting; and the other for the swimming animal, all of it water-hunting? THEAETETUS: Certainly. VISITOR: And of the swimming kind we see one tribe is winged and one lives in the water? THEAETETUS: Naturally. VISITOR: And all hunting of the winged class is called, I suppose, fowling. THEAETETUS: So it is. VISITOR: While that of the water class, taken pretty much as a whole, is fishing. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: Well now — mightn't we divide this hunting in turn into two main parts? THEAETETUS: Which ones? VISITOR: According as one does its hunting with enclosures on the spot, and the other with a strike. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? How are you dividing each? VISITOR: The first: whatever surrounds a thing and hems it in so as to block its escape, it's natural to call an enclosure. THEAETETUS: Quite so. VISITOR: Then weels and nets and nooses and traps and things like that — should they be called anything but enclosures? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. VISITOR: So we'll call this part of the chase enclosure-hunting, or something like that. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: But the part done with hooks and tridents, by striking, is different from that, and we should now call it in one word strike-hunting — unless someone can say it better, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Let's not worry about the name; that one will do. VISITOR: Of strike-hunting, then, the nighttime sort, done by firelight, has come to be called — by the hunters themselves, as it happens — fire-hunting. THEAETETUS: Certainly. VISITOR: While the daytime sort, since tridents too have hooks on their points, is all hook-hunting. THEAETETUS: So it's called. VISITOR: Then of the strike-hunting that uses hooks, the kind that goes from above downward — since that's chiefly how tridents are used — has been named, I believe, tridentry. THEAETETUS: Some people do say so, at any rate. VISITOR: And then there remains, one might say, only one form left. THEAETETUS: What's that?

STRANGER: And the opposite kind of stroke -- the one done with a hook, and not catching the fish wherever on the body it happens to, the way the three-pronged spear does, but always around the head and mouth of the creature being hunted, and hauled up from below, upward and against the pull, with rods and reeds -- what shall we say this ought to be called, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: I think what we just now set out to find has now, this very thing, been completed. STRANGER: So now you and I have agreed about angling -- not only its name, but we have grasped an adequate account of the practice itself. Of the whole of art, half was acquisitive; of the acquisitive, the part that overpowers by force; of that, the part that hunts; of hunting, the part that hunts living things; of that, the part that hunts things in water; of that, the whole lower division was fishing; of fishing, the part that strikes; and of striking, the part that uses a hook. The part of this that involves the upward stroke drawing up from below has, from the very practice itself, taken on a name resembling it, and this is what has come to be called, in our search, angling. THEAETETUS: That much, at any rate, has been shown sufficiently. STRANGER: Come then, let us try, following this same model, to find out what on earth the sophist is. THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: And indeed that was the very first question -- whether we should take the angler to be a layman or someone possessing an art. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And now, Theaetetus, shall we set this one down as a layman, or as, in every sense, truly a sophist? THEAETETUS: By no means a layman -- I understand what you mean, that whoever bears this name must be everything such a name implies. STRANGER: Then we must set him down as possessing some art, it seems. THEAETETUS: What art, then, could this be? STRANGER: Good heavens -- have we failed to notice that the two men are kin to each other? THEAETETUS: Kin of whom, to whom? STRANGER: The angler, to the sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Both appear to me to be a kind of hunter. THEAETETUS: A hunter of what, the second one? We have already named the first. STRANGER: We divided all hunting just now into two, cutting off a swimming part and a part on land. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we went through the one, as much as concerns swimming water creatures; but the land part we left uncut, saying only that it was of many kinds.

THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Up to this point, then, the sophist and the angler travel together from the art of acquisition. THEAETETUS: They do seem to. STRANGER: But they part ways from the hunting of living things -- the one turning toward the sea, rivers, and lakes, to hunt the creatures in these. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: The other turns toward the land, and toward other rivers, so to speak -- boundless meadows of wealth and youth -- meaning to master the creatures that graze there. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Land-hunting turns out to have two very large divisions. THEAETETUS: What are they, each of them? STRANGER: One is of tame creatures, the other of wild. THEAETETUS: Is there, then, a hunting of tame creatures? STRANGER: Yes, if man is a tame animal. But set it down however you please -- whether you say no creature is tame, or that some other is tame but man is wild, or again that man is tame but deny there is any hunting of men. Whichever of these you find agreeable, define it for us. THEAETETUS: Well, I take us to be a tame animal, Stranger, and I say there is indeed a hunting of men. STRANGER: Then let us say that the hunting of tame creatures, too, is twofold. THEAETETUS: On what grounds? STRANGER: Let us define piracy, slave-trading, tyranny, and the whole art of war, all as one thing -- hunting by force. THEAETETUS: Well put. STRANGER: And courtroom pleading, public speaking, and persuasive conversation, let us call, taken all together, a single art -- some art of persuasion. THEAETETUS: Correct. STRANGER: Now, of persuasion, let us say there are two kinds. THEAETETUS: What kinds? STRANGER: One happening in private, the other in public. THEAETETUS: Yes, each is indeed a distinct kind. STRANGER: And of private hunting, is not one part paid for hire, the other given as a gift? THEAETETUS: I don't follow. STRANGER: You haven't yet turned your mind, it seems, to the hunting done by lovers. THEAETETUS: Concerning what? STRANGER: That they give gifts in addition to those they hunt. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Well then, let this be a kind of the erotic art. THEAETETUS: Quite so.

STRANGER: But of the part paid for hire, the part that keeps company through charm, making its bait entirely out of pleasure, and exacts as its wage only its own upkeep -- this, I think, we would all call flattery, or some art of pleasing. THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: But the part that professes to keep company for the sake of virtue, and exacts money as its wage -- doesn't this kind deserve to be called by another name? THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: What name, then? Try to say. THEAETETUS: It's obvious -- I think we've found the sophist. So having said this, I think it is the fitting name to call him. STRANGER: Then, following our present account, Theaetetus, it seems the art that is appropriative, overpowering, acquisitive, hunting, hunting of living things, hunting on land, hunting on dry land, hunting of tame creatures, hunting of men, hunting by persuasion, hunting in private, hired, paid in coin, offering education as its lure, hunting the young and rich and prominent -- this, as our present account turns out, must be called the sophistic art. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: But let us also look at it this way -- for what we are now investigating is not a share of some paltry art, but of a very intricate one. And indeed, in what has been said already, it presents an appearance of being not this thing we now claim it to be, but some other kind. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: The art of acquisition was, we said, double in form -- one part having to do with hunting, the other with exchange. THEAETETUS: Yes, it was. STRANGER: Then let us say there are two kinds of exchange, one by gift, the other by purchase. THEAETETUS: Let it be said. STRANGER: And further, let us say that purchase-and-sale is cut in two. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Dividing off the selling of one's own products as direct-selling, and the trading of others' products as trade. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then -- of trade, isn't the exchange within a single city, roughly half of it, called retailing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the part that exchanges by buying and selling from one city to another, commerce? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And of commerce, haven't we noticed that one part deals in goods by which the body is fed and served, the other in goods by which the soul is -- selling these too, in exchange for coin? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by this? STRANGER: The part concerning the soul we perhaps do not yet understand, since the other part, at least, we do grasp. THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: Let us, then, speak of the whole of music -- bought at one city each time and carried elsewhere to be sold; and painting, and puppetry, and many other things pertaining to the soul, some brought and sold for the sake of amusement, others for the sake of earnest matters -- and let us say that the one who brings and sells these could rightly be called a merchant, no less than the seller of food and drink. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Then won't you apply the same name to the one who buys up items of learning, going from city to city, exchanging them for money? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Of this soul-trading business, wouldn't one part most justly be called a display-art, while the other -- no less absurd than the first, yet still, since it is a selling of learning, must be called by some name akin to the practice? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Then of this learning-selling art, one part concerning the learning of the other arts must be given one name, and the part concerning virtue, another. THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: 'Art-selling' would surely fit the part concerning the other arts; but as for the name for the part concerning these matters -- virtue -- please make an effort to state it yourself. THEAETETUS: And what other name could one give, without erring, besides saying that this very thing being sought is the sophistic kind itself? STRANGER: None other. Come, then, let us now gather it together, saying: the sophistic art has appeared, a second time, as that part of the art of acquisition, exchange, purchase-and-sale, commerce, and soul-trading, which deals in words and lessons concerning virtue. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And a third time, I think, you would also call by this same name any man settled within a single city, who partly buys and partly himself fabricates lessons on these same subjects, and sells them, making his living from this -- you would call him nothing other than what we just now said. THEAETETUS: Of course I would. STRANGER: So the part of acquisition that is exchange -- whether purchase, or retail, or direct-selling, in either case, whatever learning-selling business concerns such matters -- you will always call, it seems, sophistic. THEAETETUS: Necessarily -- for one must follow along with the argument. STRANGER: Let us look further still, to see whether the kind we are now pursuing resembles something of the following sort.

THEAETETUS: What sort? STRANGER: Of the art of acquisition, there was for us a part called competitive. THEAETETUS: Yes, there was. STRANGER: Then it isn't out of place to cut this in two as well. THEAETETUS: Say along which lines. STRANGER: Setting one part of it as contest, the other as combat. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Now for the combat that occurs body against body, it's likely fitting to give it some name such as violence. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: But for the one that pits words against words, Theaetetus, what else could one call it but disputation? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And the matter of disputation must be set down as twofold. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Insofar as it occurs in long speeches opposed to long speeches, and concerns just and unjust things, in public, it is forensic. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the kind that occurs in private, broken up into questions against answers -- surely we're accustomed to call this nothing but eristic? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And of eristic, the part that concerns contracts, in which people dispute, but do so haphazardly and without art -- this must be set down as a distinct kind, since the argument has recognized it as being something separate, but it has not received a name from earlier thinkers, nor does it deserve one from us now. THEAETETUS: True -- for it is divided up into pieces too small and too various. STRANGER: But the part that is done with art, and disputes about just and unjust things themselves, and about other matters generally -- don't we usually call this, in turn, contentious argument? THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: And of contentious argument, one part wastes money, the other makes money. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Then let us try to state the name that each of these two ought to be called. THEAETETUS: We certainly must. STRANGER: Well, I think that the part which, out of the sheer pleasure of spending time on such things, neglects one's own household affairs, while its manner of speaking gives most of its listeners no pleasure at all -- this, in my judgment, is called nothing other than idle chatter. THEAETETUS: Yes, it's called something like that. STRANGER: Then try to state, in your turn, the opposite of this -- the one that makes money from private quarrels. THEAETETUS: And what else could one say, without error, except that this in turn is, once again, that same astonishing figure, now appearing for a fourth time -- the sophist we've been pursuing?

STRANGER: Nothing else, it seems, than that the moneymaking kind belonging to the art of disputation — the art of contradiction, of controversy, of combat, of contest, of acquisition — is, as our argument has now revealed once more, the sophist. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So you see how truly it's said that this creature is many-colored and, as the saying goes, not to be caught with one hand? THEAETETUS: Then we must use both. STRANGER: Yes, we must, and as far as we're able we should do just that, tracking some further trace of him like this. Tell me — we have certain names for household tasks, don't we? THEAETETUS: Many of them. But which of the many are you asking about? STRANGER: Things like this: we speak of straining, sifting, winnowing, and separating. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And besides these, also carding, combing, weaving with the shuttle, and countless other such things present in the crafts. We know these, don't we? THEAETETUS: What point were you trying to illustrate by setting out these examples and asking about all of them together? STRANGER: All the things mentioned are, I think, cases of division. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So, following my argument, since this is one single art running through all of them, we should think it worthy of one name. THEAETETUS: What shall we call it? STRANGER: Discriminative. THEAETETUS: Let it be so. STRANGER: Now look and see whether we can make out two forms of it in turn. THEAETETUS: That's a quick inquiry you're setting me. STRANGER: Well, among the divisions we mentioned, one kind separated worse from better, the other like from like. THEAETETUS: Put that way, it does seem to be so. STRANGER: Now for the second kind I have no established name; but for the division that keeps the better and throws away the worse, I do have one. THEAETETUS: Tell me. STRANGER: Every division of that sort, as I understand it, is called by everyone a kind of purification. THEAETETUS: Yes, it is. STRANGER: And wouldn't everyone see that this purifying kind is itself twofold? THEAETETUS: Yes — given time to think, perhaps; but I don't see it right now. STRANGER: Well, the many kinds of purification concerning bodies deserve to be gathered under one name. THEAETETUS: Which ones, and what name?

STRANGER: Those belonging to living creatures — whatever is purified, rightly, from within the body by gymnastic and medicine — and, concerning the outside, trivial to mention, whatever bathing provides; and those of lifeless bodies, which fulling and the whole art of adornment attend to, acquiring in their small particulars many names that seem laughable. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Quite so indeed, Theaetetus. But for the method of argument it makes no more and no less difference whether sponge-cleaning or medicine-drinking benefits us by purifying small things or great. For in order to acquire understanding, it tries to grasp what is akin and what is not akin among all the arts, and for this purpose it honors them all equally, and considers none of the like arts more laughable than another by reason of their similarity; nor does it think someone who displays hunting through generalship more dignified than one who does so through lice-catching — rather, for the most part, more pompous. And so now too, as to what you asked — what single name we shall give to all the powers, whatever they may be, that are allotted the task of purifying a body, whether ensouled or soulless — it will make no difference to our method which term seems the most fitting. Only let it hold together, apart from the purifications of the soul, everything else that purifies anything at all. For it has now been trying to mark off the purification concerning thought from the others — if indeed we understand what it wants. THEAETETUS: Well, I have understood, and I agree there are two kinds of purification, one being the kind concerning the soul, separate from the kind concerning the body. STRANGER: Excellent in every way. Now listen to what comes next, trying again to cut what's been said in two. THEAETETUS: Whatever direction you lead, I'll try to help you cut it. STRANGER: Do we speak of some vice in the soul as distinct from virtue? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And purification was, we said, to keep the one and cast out whatever is bad. THEAETETUS: Yes, it was. STRANGER: So too with the soul — insofar as we find some removal of badness in it, we'll be speaking in tune if we call this a purification. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: We must speak of two kinds of badness concerning the soul. THEAETETUS: Which two?

STRANGER: One like a disease in the body, the other like an ugliness that arises in it. THEAETETUS: I didn't follow that. STRANGER: Perhaps you haven't thought of disease and civil strife as the same thing? THEAETETUS: Here too I don't know what I should answer. STRANGER: Do you take strife to be anything other than the falling-out, from some corruption, of things naturally akin? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And is ugliness anything but the presence everywhere of the disproportionate, unshapely kind? THEAETETUS: Nothing else at all. STRANGER: Well then — haven't we noticed that in the soul, opinions are at odds with desires, spirit with pleasures, reason with pains, and all these with one another, whenever things go badly? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And yet all these are necessarily akin to one another. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So we'll be right to call vice a strife and disease of the soul. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: And what about this — whatever partakes of motion, and sets itself some target, and in trying to reach it on each impulse veers off course and misses — shall we say these things suffer this from a proportion among themselves, or on the contrary from a disproportion? THEAETETUS: Clearly from disproportion. STRANGER: But surely we know that every soul, whenever it's ignorant of anything, is ignorant against its will. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And to be ignorant is nothing other than this: when a soul reaching for truth has its understanding go astray — that is nothing but derangement. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So we must posit an unintelligent soul as ugly and disproportionate. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: There are, then, as it appears, these two kinds of evils in the soul — the one called by most people vice, which is quite clearly a disease of it. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the other they call ignorance, but they're unwilling to admit that, occurring only in the soul, it too is a badness. THEAETETUS: I must fully grant now what I was puzzled about when you said it a moment ago — that there are two kinds of badness in the soul, and that cowardice, intemperance, and injustice must all be counted as a disease within us, while the affliction of extensive and manifold ignorance must be set down as ugliness. STRANGER: So concerning the body, for these two afflictions there arose two arts? THEAETETUS: Which two?

STRANGER: For ugliness, gymnastic; for disease, medicine. THEAETETUS: So it appears. STRANGER: And for insolence, injustice, and cowardice, isn't the art of chastisement by nature the one most fitting of all the arts, most closely related to Justice? THEAETETUS: That's likely, at least by human reckoning. STRANGER: And what about this — for ignorance in general, could one more rightly name any other art than the art of teaching? THEAETETUS: None. STRANGER: Come then — must we say teaching is a single kind, or several, with two of them the greatest? Consider. THEAETETUS: I'm considering. STRANGER: And I think we could find out most quickly this way. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: By seeing whether ignorance admits of some cut down its middle. For if it turns out to be double, that clearly forces teaching too to have two parts, one for each of its kinds. THEAETETUS: Well then, is what we're now seeking clear to you at all? STRANGER: I think I see one form of ignorance that is great and hard, set apart, outweighing all its other parts together. THEAETETUS: Which one is that? STRANGER: Thinking one knows something one doesn't know at all. Through this, it seems, all the errors of thought come about for everyone. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And indeed I think this alone, among the kinds of ignorance, has been given the name stupidity. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And what should we call the part of teaching that removes this? THEAETETUS: Well, Stranger, I think the rest should be called instruction in crafts, but this one, here among us, we call education. STRANGER: Yes, and pretty much among all the Greeks. But we still have this further to examine — whether it is now already indivisible, or admits some division worthy of a name. THEAETETUS: We should look into it. STRANGER: Well, I think this too still splits somehow. THEAETETUS: In what way? STRANGER: Of teaching by argument, one path seems rougher, the other part of it smoother. THEAETETUS: What shall we call each of these?

STRANGER: The one is the venerable, ancestral method, which people used most of all toward their sons, and many still use today, whenever their children go wrong in some way — sometimes scolding them harshly, sometimes coaxing more gently. The whole of it, one would most rightly call admonition. THEAETETUS: That's how it is. STRANGER: But others, it seems, have reasoned it out for themselves and come to hold that all ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise in matters he considers himself clever in would ever be willing to learn anything about them, and that this admonitory kind of education, for all its trouble, accomplishes little. THEAETETUS: And they're right to think so. STRANGER: For this reason they set out to expel that very opinion by another method. THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: They question someone about the things he thinks he's saying something about when he's really saying nothing; then, since such people's opinions wander, they easily test them, and gathering these opinions together in argument, they set them side by side, and in setting them side by side they show that they contradict each other, about the same things, in relation to the same things, in the same respect. And those who see this grow angry at themselves, but grow gentle toward others, and in this way they are freed from their great, rigid opinions about themselves — a freedom that, of all releases, is the most pleasant to hear and proves the most lasting for the one who undergoes it. For those who purify them, dear boy, hold the same view as doctors who deal with the body: just as those doctors have held that the body cannot benefit from food offered to it until someone expels the obstructions within it, so too these thinkers judged concerning the soul — that it will not gain benefit from the learning offered to it until someone, by refuting a person, brings him to a sense of shame, removing the opinions that obstruct his learning, and shows him purified, believing he knows only what he does know, and no more. THEAETETUS: That is certainly the best and most sound-minded of the states one can be in. STRANGER: For all these reasons, then, Theaetetus, we must say that refutation is the greatest and most authoritative of purifications, and conversely we must consider anyone unrefuted — even if he happens to be the Great King himself — as, in the greatest matters, unpurified, and as having become uneducated and ugly in just those respects in which the one who is truly going to be happy ought to be most pure and most beautiful. THEAETETUS: Quite so indeed.

STRANGER: Well then — what shall we call those who practice this art? I'm afraid to say sophists. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: For fear we grant them too great an honor. THEAETETUS: But surely what has just been said does resemble something of that sort. STRANGER: Yes, just as a wolf resembles a dog, the wildest thing resembling the tamest. But the cautious man must above all keep watch concerning resemblances, always — for that class of thing is most slippery. Still, let it stand; for I don't think the dispute will be over small boundary lines, once people keep watch carefully enough. THEAETETUS: No, that's not likely. STRANGER: Then let there be a purifying part of the discriminative art, and within purification let the part concerning the soul be marked off, and within this, teaching, and within teaching, education; and let the refutation of empty conceit of wisdom, which has appeared to us in our present argument concerning education, be called, for us, nothing other than the noble sophistry — noble in its kind. THEAETETUS: Let it be called so. But I myself am now at a loss, since so many things have come to light, as to what one should say — speaking truly and firmly — the sophist really is. STRANGER: It's reasonable that you're at a loss. But we should think that by now he too must be quite at a loss as to how he'll still slip out of the argument. For the proverb is right that says it isn't easy to escape every kind of net. So now especially we must press the attack on him. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: First, then, let's stand still and catch our breath, so to speak, and while resting let's reckon up among ourselves how many things the sophist has turned out to be for us. For I think, first, he was found to be a paid hunter of the young and wealthy. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And second, a kind of merchant in learning concerning the soul. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And third, didn't he turn up as a retailer of these same things? THEAETETUS: Yes, and fourth he was, for us, one who sells his own wares directly concerning learning. STRANGER: You remembered rightly. And I'll try to remember the fifth: he was a kind of athlete in the contest of arguments, having marked off for himself the art of disputation. THEAETETUS: Yes, he was. STRANGER: The sixth is disputable, but even so we set it down, granting him to be a purifier of the soul from opinions that obstruct learning. THEAETETUS: Quite so indeed.

STRANGER: Do you notice this — when someone appears knowledgeable about many things but is called by the name of a single skill, there's something unsound about that impression? It's clear that the person forming this impression can't make out the one thing in that skill toward which all these various branches of learning point — which is why he addresses the person who has them by many names instead of one. THEAETETUS: That does seem to be roughly how it works. STRANGER: Then let's not let laziness produce the same effect on us in our own inquiry. Let's pick up again one of the things we said about the sophist. There was one point in particular that struck me as revealing him. THEAETETUS: Which point? STRANGER: We said he was a controversialist, a man skilled in arguing both sides. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And also that he makes others into the same sort of arguer? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Let's look, then, at what exactly such men claim to make people skilled at arguing about. Let our inquiry proceed from the beginning along these lines: take divine matters, the things hidden from most people — do they make people capable of arguing both sides about those? THEAETETUS: Well, that's certainly what's said about them. STRANGER: And what about visible things — the earth, the sky, and everything connected with them? THEAETETUS: Of course, that too. STRANGER: And in private conversations, whenever something is said about coming-to-be and being in a general way, we know that they themselves are formidable at arguing the opposite view, and that they make others just as capable? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: And what about laws and political matters generally — don't they promise to produce men able to dispute any position? THEAETETUS: No one would even talk to them, so to speak, if they didn't promise that. STRANGER: And as for the arguments to be raised against every craftsman, in every single craft and in all of them together — these have surely been written down and published for anyone who wants to learn them. THEAETETUS: You seem to be referring to the Protagorean writings on wrestling and the other crafts. STRANGER: Yes, my friend, and many others besides. But isn't the whole point of this art of argument-both-ways, in sum, some single capacity sufficient for disputing about everything? THEAETETUS: Well, it certainly looks as though it leaves nothing out. STRANGER: But by the gods, my boy, do you really think that's possible? Perhaps you young people see this more sharply than we do, and we see it more dimly.

THEAETETUS: What do you mean, and what exactly are you asking? I don't quite follow the question just now. STRANGER: Whether it's possible for any human being to know everything. THEAETETUS: If it were, Stranger, our race would be a blessed one indeed. STRANGER: Then how could anyone, being himself ignorant, manage to say anything sound in opposition to someone who actually knows? THEAETETUS: There's no way. STRANGER: So what could be so wonderful about the sophist's supposed power? THEAETETUS: What are you asking about? STRANGER: The way they manage to give young people the impression that they themselves are the wisest of all men on all subjects. Clearly, if they didn't argue correctly, or if they did but didn't appear to their listeners to be doing so, or if — even appearing to — they still weren't thought any wiser on account of their disputing, then, as you say, hardly anyone would ever be willing to pay them money to become their students. THEAETETUS: Hardly, indeed. STRANGER: But as it stands, people are willing? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Because they're thought, I imagine, to have real knowledge of the very things they argue about. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And they do this about everything, we're saying? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So they appear to their students as wise about everything. THEAETETUS: Naturally. STRANGER: Though not actually being so — for that turned out to be impossible. THEAETETUS: How could it be otherwise? STRANGER: So the sophist has turned out for us to possess some sort of opinion-based knowledge about everything, but not the truth. THEAETETUS: Absolutely — and it looks like what's just been said is exactly right about them. STRANGER: Let's take a clearer example to illustrate this. THEAETETUS: What sort? STRANGER: This one. And try to pay close attention and answer well. THEAETETUS: About what? STRANGER: Suppose someone claimed that he could, not by speaking or arguing, but by making and doing, know how to produce all things by a single craft— THEAETETUS: What do you mean by 'all things'? STRANGER: You're already missing the start of what I said — it seems you don't grasp 'all things' as a whole. THEAETETUS: No, I don't. STRANGER: I mean you and me among all things, and along with us the other animals and the trees. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Suppose someone claimed he would make me and you and all the other living things as well—

THEAETETUS: What sort of making are you talking about? You surely can't mean some kind of farmer — you also said he'd be a maker of animals. STRANGER: I do mean that, and more — a maker of sea and earth and sky and gods and everything else besides; and what's more, he makes each of these quickly and sells them all for a very small price. THEAETETUS: You're describing some kind of joke. STRANGER: And what about the man who says he knows everything and could teach it to someone else for a small fee and in a short time — shouldn't that too be considered a joke? THEAETETUS: Absolutely, I'd think. STRANGER: And do you know of any form of playful trickery more skillful or more charming than the art of imitation? THEAETETUS: Not at all — you've named a form that gathers an enormous range of things into one, and about the most versatile kind there is. STRANGER: Then we recognize that the man who promises to be able to make everything by one craft — by producing likenesses and namesakes of the things that exist through the art of drawing — will be able, by showing his drawings from a distance, to deceive foolish young children into thinking that whatever he wishes to do, he's fully capable of actually accomplishing. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And what about this — shouldn't we expect there to be some other craft concerning speeches, by which it's likewise possible to bewitch the young through their ears with words, while they're still standing far off from the truth of things — by presenting spoken images of everything, so as to make what's said seem true, and the speaker himself seem the wisest of all men on every subject? THEAETETUS: Why shouldn't there be some such craft? STRANGER: Then isn't it necessary, Theaetetus, that most of those who listened to such things back then, once enough time has passed and they've grown older, and they come up against realities close at hand, and are forced through direct experience to grasp clearly what actually exists — that they change the opinions they held back then, so that great things now appear small, and easy things difficult, and all the images conjured up in speeches are utterly overturned by the things that actually happen in practice? THEAETETUS: Yes, as far as I, at my age, can judge. I suppose I too am still among those standing far off from it.

STRANGER: That's exactly why all of us here will try — and are trying right now — to bring you as close as possible without the actual experience. So tell me this about the sophist: is it already clear that he's one of these enchanters, an imitator of real things, or are we still uncertain whether he actually possesses true knowledge of all the subjects he seems capable of arguing about? THEAETETUS: How could that be, Stranger? It's already fairly clear from what's been said that he's one of the participants in this playful trickery. STRANGER: Then we must set him down as some kind of enchanter and imitator. THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: Come then — our job now is not to let the quarry loose any longer. We've pretty much surrounded him in a kind of net woven from arguments about such matters, so that he won't escape this much at least. THEAETETUS: Escape what? STRANGER: The conclusion that he's one of the tribe of wonder-workers. THEAETETUS: I agree with that much about him too. STRANGER: It's decided, then, that we should as quickly as possible divide the art of image-making, and once we've descended into it — if the sophist waits for us right away, we'll seize him according to the instructions of the royal argument, and hand him over, displaying our catch; but if he slips down into some subdivision of the art of imitation, we'll follow along, always dividing the part that receives him, until he's caught. In no case will he or any other kind ever be able to boast that it escaped a method capable of pursuing things both one by one and all together. THEAETETUS: Well said — that's exactly what we should do. STRANGER: Following the method of division we've used so far, I think I can now make out two forms of the art of imitation — but which of the two contains the form we're hunting for, I don't yet think I can determine. THEAETETUS: Well, tell us first and distinguish the two you mean. STRANGER: One I see in it is the art of likeness-making. This occurs above all whenever someone produces a copy by following the proportions of the model in length, breadth, and depth, and further assigns to each part the colors that properly belong to it. THEAETETUS: But don't all imitators try to do this?

STRANGER: Not those who model or draw any of the large works. If they were to reproduce the true proportions of beautiful things, you know that the upper parts would appear too small and the lower parts too large, because we see the one from a distance and the other from close up. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So don't craftsmen, letting the truth go, actually work into their images not the real proportions but those that will seem beautiful? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Then isn't it fair to call the one thing, since it's like its model, a likeness? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And shouldn't the part of imitation concerned with this be called, as we said before, the art of likeness-making? THEAETETUS: It should. STRANGER: And what about the thing that appears, because of the way it's viewed rather than from a good vantage point, to resemble the beautiful — but which, if someone gained the power to see such large things properly, wouldn't even resemble the thing it claims to resemble — what do we call that? Since it appears but doesn't resemble, isn't it an apparition? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And isn't this a very large part, both in painting and throughout the whole of imitation? THEAETETUS: How could it not be? STRANGER: Then wouldn't we most correctly call the art that produces an apparition rather than a likeness the art of appearance-making? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: These, then, were the two forms I meant of the image-making art — likeness-making and appearance-making. THEAETETUS: Correctly put. STRANGER: But the thing I was unsure of before — in which of the two we should place the sophist — I still can't see clearly even now. The man really is astonishing, and extremely hard to pin down, since even now he's escaped very neatly and cleverly into a form that's hard to investigate. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: Do you agree because you actually understand this, or has some momentum of the argument, from sheer habit, swept you along into agreeing quickly? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that, and what's it about? STRANGER: We really are, my friend, in an altogether difficult inquiry. This business of appearing and seeming without being, and of saying things that aren't true — all of this has always been full of perplexity, both in the past and now. How one is to say that falsehood really exists, either in speech or in belief, and in saying so avoid being caught in a self-contradiction — that, Theaetetus, is thoroughly difficult.

THEAETETUS: How is that? STRANGER: This argument has dared to assume that what-is-not is — for otherwise falsehood could never have come to be. But great Parmenides, my boy, when we were children testified against this from beginning to end, saying it again and again, both in plain speech and in verse — 'for never shall this be forced through, that things that are not, are; but you, in your inquiry, hold your thought back from this path.' So it is testified to by him, and the argument itself, if we press it a little, would show this most clearly of all. Let us look at this very point first, if it makes no difference to you. THEAETETUS: Do with me whatever you like — just look for whatever path the argument runs best along, and lead me by that same road. STRANGER: Then that is what we must do. Tell me — do we dare to utter the phrase 'what in no way is'? THEAETETUS: Of course we do. STRANGER: Well then, not for the sake of dispute or play, but suppose one of our listeners had to stop and think seriously and answer: to what should this name, 'what is not,' be applied? What do we suppose we ourselves would use it for, and what would we point to in showing it to someone who asked? THEAETETUS: That's a hard question you've asked, and pretty much impossible for someone like me altogether. STRANGER: Well, this much at least is clear: 'what is not' cannot be attached to any of the things that are. THEAETETUS: How could it be? STRANGER: So then, since it cannot be attached to what is, no one could rightly attach it to 'something' either. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: This too is plain to us, surely: that whenever we say 'something,' we always say it of something that is; for to say it all alone, bare and stripped away from all the things that are, is impossible — isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Impossible. STRANGER: Do you agree, looking at it this way, that whoever says 'something' must be saying some one thing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: For you will say that 'something' is a sign of one thing, and 'some two' of two, and 'some several' of many. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And whoever says nothing at all as 'something' must, it seems, necessarily be saying nothing whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Quite necessarily. STRANGER: So must we not even grant this much — that such a person says something, yet says nothing — but rather say he isn't even speaking at all, if he attempts to utter the words 'what is not'? THEAETETUS: Well then, the argument would have reached the very end of its perplexity.

STRANGER: Don't say anything so grand yet, my blessed friend — for there is still more, and this is in fact the greatest and the very first of the difficulties. It happens to concern the very starting point of the matter. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak, and don't hold back at all. STRANGER: To what is, presumably, something else that is could be added. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But to what is not, shall we ever say that any of the things that are could be added? THEAETETUS: How could it? STRANGER: We reckon number as a whole among the things that are, don't we? THEAETETUS: Yes, if indeed anything else is to be reckoned as being. STRANGER: Then let us not even attempt to bring either a plurality of number or a single unit up against what is not. THEAETETUS: We would not, it seems, be attempting that rightly, according to what the argument says. STRANGER: Then how could anyone either utter with his mouth, or even grasp in thought at all, the things that are not, or what is not apart from number? THEAETETUS: Tell me how you mean. STRANGER: When we speak of 'things that are not,' plural, aren't we attempting to add a plurality of number? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And when we say 'what is not,' singular, aren't we adding the unit instead? THEAETETUS: Quite clearly so. STRANGER: And yet we say it is neither just nor right to attempt to fit what is onto what is not. THEAETETUS: What you say is very true. STRANGER: Do you see, then, that it is not possible to utter correctly, nor to speak, nor to think, what is not, all by itself — but that it is unthinkable, unspeakable, unutterable, and without account? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Was I wrong, then, just now in saying I would state the greatest difficulty about it — do we have some other one still greater to mention? THEAETETUS: What one is that? STRANGER: My wonderful friend, don't you see, from the very things that have been said, that what-is-not throws even the man refuting it into such difficulty that whenever anyone tries to refute it, he is forced to contradict himself about it? THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Say it more clearly still. STRANGER: There's no need to look for anything clearer in me. For I myself, having laid it down that what-is-not must have no share in either one or the many, just now and even now spoke of it as one — for I said 'what is not.' You follow, I take it? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And again, only a moment ago, I said it was unutterable, unspeakable, and without account. Do you follow?

STRANGER: So then, wasn't I saying things contrary to what I said before, when I tried to attach 'being' to it? THEAETETUS: You appear to be. STRANGER: And what's more, in attaching that, wasn't I speaking of it as if it were one thing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And indeed, when I called it without account, unspeakable, and unutterable, I was treating my discourse as directed at one single thing. THEAETETUS: Of course you were. STRANGER: But we say that, if one is to speak correctly, one must mark it off neither as one nor as many, nor even call it 'it' at all — for by that very designation it would be addressed under the form of the one. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then, what could anyone say about me? For he would find me defeated, both long ago and now, on the subject of refuting what-is-not. So don't let us look, as I said, to my own speech for correct usage concerning what-is-not — come, let us instead examine the matter in you. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Come, make a fine and noble attempt for us — since you're young — and strain every nerve you can, and try, without attaching either being, or the one, or a plurality of number, to what-is-not, to say something correct about it. THEAETETUS: A great and strange eagerness would have to seize me for the attempt, if, seeing you suffering as you do, I should try it myself. STRANGER: Well, if you like, let's leave you and me out of it. But until we meet someone able to do this, let us say that the sophist has, more than anything, cunningly sunk himself down into a place with no way out. THEAETETUS: It certainly does appear so. STRANGER: And so, if we say he possesses some art of image-making, he will easily seize on that very use of words against us and turn our arguments back the other way, whenever we call him an image-maker, by asking us just what in the world we mean at all by 'image.' So we must consider, Theaetetus, what one is to answer the young man in response to his question. THEAETETUS: Clearly we shall say the images in water and in mirrors, and further the painted and molded ones, and all the other such things there are of that kind. STRANGER: It's plain, Theaetetus, that you haven't seen a sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: He'll seem to you to be shutting his eyes, or to have no eyes at all. THEAETETUS: How do you mean?

STRANGER: When you give him that answer, if you speak of things in mirrors or in sculpted works, he will laugh at your words, since you speak to him as if he could see, pretending he knows nothing of mirrors or water or sight at all — and he will question you only on the basis of your own words. THEAETETUS: What sort of question? STRANGER: The one running through all these things which, though you named many, you thought fit to call by one name, speaking of 'image' as applying to them all as though it were one thing. So speak, and defend yourself, giving no ground to the man. THEAETETUS: Then what, Stranger, should we say an image is, except another thing of the same sort, made to resemble the true one? STRANGER: Do you mean another true thing of that sort, or what do you mean by 'of that sort'? THEAETETUS: Not true at all, but merely like it. STRANGER: Do you mean by 'the true' what really is? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And is the not-true, then, the opposite of the true? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So you're saying that the likeness really is not, if indeed you're going to say it is not true. THEAETETUS: But it does exist, in some way. STRANGER: Not truly, though, you say. THEAETETUS: No, not that — except that it really is a likeness. STRANGER: So it is not, yet really is — this thing we call a likeness? THEAETETUS: It looks as if what-is-not has gotten woven together with what-is in some such tangle — and a very strange one at that. STRANGER: Of course it's strange. You can see, at any rate, that even now, through this interweaving, the many-headed sophist has forced us, against our will, to admit that what-is-not somehow is. THEAETETUS: I see it very clearly. STRANGER: Well then — how are we going to mark off his art in such a way that we can agree with ourselves? THEAETETUS: In what way, and what are you afraid of, that you speak like this? STRANGER: When we say he deceives people about appearance, and that his art is a kind of deceiving art, shall we say that our soul holds false beliefs because of his art, or what shall we say? THEAETETUS: That — what else could we say? STRANGER: And false belief, in turn, will be believing the opposite of the things that are, won't it? THEAETETUS: Yes, the opposite. STRANGER: So you're saying that false belief believes things that are not? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. STRANGER: Does it believe that the things that are not, are not, or in some way that the things that in no way are, are? THEAETETUS: The things that are not must in some way be, if anyone is ever going to be false about anything, even a little. STRANGER: What then — isn't it also believed that the things that altogether are, are not? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And is this too falsehood? THEAETETUS: This too.

STRANGER: And a false statement, I think, will be judged false in just the same way — one that says the things that are, are not, and the things that are not, are. THEAETETUS: How else could it become such a thing? STRANGER: Hardly any other way. But the sophist will not admit this. Or what device is there for any sensible man to agree, once it has already been agreed beforehand that these things are unutterable, unspeakable, without account, and unthinkable? Do we understand, Theaetetus, what he means? THEAETETUS: Of course we understand that he'll say we're saying the opposite of what we just said, when we dare to assert that falsehood exists among beliefs and in statements — since we're forced, over and over, to attach being to what-is-not, though we just now agreed together that this was the most impossible thing of all. STRANGER: You've remembered rightly. But now consider what we ought to do about the sophist — for you see how ready to hand and how numerous are the objections and difficulties, if we go hunting for him by placing him in the art of those who work falsehood and deceive by tricks. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And yet we've only gone through a small portion of them, when they are, so to speak, endless. THEAETETUS: It would be impossible, then, it seems, to catch the sophist, if this is how things stand. STRANGER: What then? Shall we now grow soft and back off? THEAETETUS: No, I say we must not, if we're still able to get some grip on the man, even a small one. STRANGER: Then will you forgive me, and be content, as you just said, if we manage somehow to pull ourselves free, even a little, from so strong an argument? THEAETETUS: Of course I will. STRANGER: Then I beg one more thing of you, even more. THEAETETUS: What is that? STRANGER: Don't take me for some kind of father-killer. THEAETETUS: Why do you say that? STRANGER: In defending ourselves, we shall be forced to test father Parmenides' argument, and to force through the claim both that what-is-not, in some way, is, and that what-is, in turn, in some way is not. THEAETETUS: It's clear that this is a point we must fight for in the argument. STRANGER: Of course it's clear, even to a blind man, as the saying goes. For until these things are either refuted or agreed to, hardly anyone will ever be able to speak about false statements or false belief — whether of images, or likenesses, or imitations, or appearances themselves, or of the arts concerned with these — without being forced to contradict himself and become an object of ridicule. THEAETETUS: Very true.

STRANGER: For these reasons, then, we must dare to lay hands on our father's teaching now, or else abandon the attempt altogether, if some scruple is holding us back from doing it. THEAETETUS: No, let nothing hold us back from that, not in the least. STRANGER: Then there's a third small favor I'll ask of you. THEAETETUS: Just say it. STRANGER: I said a moment ago that when it comes to examining this question I've always been at a loss, and I still am now. THEAETETUS: You did say that. STRANGER: Well, I'm afraid that after saying this you'll think me a madman, suddenly turning myself upside down and inside out for no reason. For it's for your sake that we're going to take on the examination of this claim, if we're going to examine it at all. THEAETETUS: As far as that goes, you won't seem to me to be doing anything out of line if you proceed to this examination and demonstration—so go ahead with confidence. STRANGER: Well then, where should one begin such a risky argument? I think, my boy, this is the path we're most bound to take. THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: To look first at the things that now seem obvious to us, in case we've actually gotten muddled about them, and are too readily agreeing with each other that we see them clearly. THEAETETUS: Say more plainly what you mean. STRANGER: It seems to me that Parmenides—and everyone else who's ever set out to determine by argument how many things there are, and of what sort—has talked to us rather too casually. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Each of them seems to me to be telling us some story, as if we were children. One says the things that are are three, and that certain of them sometimes make war on each other, and sometimes become friends and produce marriages and births and the rearing of offspring. Another says there are two, wet and dry or hot and cold, and marries them off and gives them away. And our own Eleatic tribe, starting from Xenophanes and even earlier, tells its tales on the assumption that what we call all things is really one. Then some later Ionian and Sicilian Muses realized that it was safest to weave the two together, and to say that being is both many and one, held together by hatred and love.

STRANGER: 'For it is drawn together in being drawn apart,' say the more strenuous of these Muses; while the gentler ones relax the claim that this is always so, and say instead that in turn the universe is at one time one and friendly, under Aphrodite's power, and at another time many and at war with itself, on account of some kind of strife. Now whether any of them has spoken truly or not in all this is a difficult and delicate question—it isn't right to find fault on such a scale with men so famous and so old—but there's one thing that can be said without giving offense. THEAETETUS: What's that? STRANGER: That they've looked down on the likes of us, the many, and paid us far too little regard. They give no thought at all to whether we follow what they're saying or get left behind, and each of them simply carries through to the end whatever he's set out to say. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Whenever one of them declares that things are, or have come to be, or are coming to be, many or one or two, and then again speaks of hot mixed together with cold, positing separations and combinations elsewhere—tell me, Theaetetus, in the name of the gods, do you actually understand each time what they mean by these things? As for me, when I was younger I thought I understood exactly what was meant by 'what is not,' which is actually the very question we're now stuck on. But now you see what a difficulty we're in about it. THEAETETUS: I see. STRANGER: So perhaps we're in just as much the same condition, in our souls, regarding 'that which is'—thinking we're comfortable with it and understand it whenever someone utters the word, while with 'that which is not' we don't, when in fact we're in exactly the same state with both. THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: And let's say the same holds for the other terms we mentioned earlier. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: We'll look into the rest of them later, if it seems good to do so, but for now we must examine the greatest and most fundamental one first. THEAETETUS: Which one do you mean? Or is it obvious—that you think we should investigate first what people mean when they say 'that which is'? STRANGER: You've followed right on my heels, Theaetetus. What I mean is that we should proceed in this way: as though they themselves were present, we should question them like this. Come now, all of you who say that everything is hot and cold, or some other such pair—what is it you mean when you speak of both of them, saying that each of the two is, and both of them are? What are we to understand by this 'being' of yours? Is it a third thing alongside those two, so that we should count the universe as three things according to you, and no longer two? Surely, in calling one of the two 'being,' you don't mean that both of them equally are—for in either case there'd be one thing, not two. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: But then, do you want to call the pair of them, together, 'being'? THEAETETUS: Perhaps.

STRANGER: But then, my friends, we shall say, even on this view the two would most clearly be spoken of as one. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then, since we're at a loss, you must make it clear enough to us what you mean to signify when you utter the word 'being.' For clearly you've understood this all along, while we used to think we did, but now find ourselves at a loss. So first teach us this very point, so that we don't imagine we understand what you're saying when the truth is quite the opposite. Now, in saying this and demanding it of them and of everyone else who says that the universe is more than one thing—are we, my boy, going to be doing anything out of line? THEAETETUS: Not in the least. STRANGER: Well then? Shouldn't we also ask those who say the universe is one, as far as we're able, what exactly they mean by 'that which is'? THEAETETUS: Of course we should. STRANGER: Then let them answer this. You say only one thing exists?—'Yes, we do say that,' they'll answer. Isn't that right? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well then? Do you call something 'being'? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Is it the very same thing as 'the one,' so that you're using two names for the same thing, or how is it? THEAETETUS: Well then, Stranger, what's their answer to that going to be? STRANGER: Clearly, Theaetetus, it isn't the easiest thing in the world for anyone who's adopted this hypothesis to answer that question, or indeed any other. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: To admit that there are two names when one has posited that nothing exists but the one is, I think, ridiculous. THEAETETUS: How could it not be? STRANGER: And to accept from anyone at all the claim that there is such a thing as a name would make no sense either. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: In positing that the name is different from the thing, he's speaking of two things. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And what's more, if he takes the name to be the same as the thing, he'll be forced either to say it's the name of nothing, or, if he says it's the name of something, the result will be that the name is merely the name of a name, and of nothing else at all. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And 'the one,' too, will turn out to be the name of one thing, and also the name of the name of that oneness. THEAETETUS: That's inevitable. STRANGER: Well then? Will they say that the whole is different from being, the one thing, or the same as it? THEAETETUS: Of course they'll say it's the same, and indeed they do say so. STRANGER: Well, if it's a whole—as Parmenides too says: 'like the mass of a well-rounded sphere on every side, evenly balanced from the center in every direction; for it must be neither at all greater nor at all smaller in this direction or that'—if being is of that sort, then it has a middle and extremities, and if it has these, then surely it must have parts. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: It is.

STRANGER: But surely nothing prevents a thing that's been divided into parts from having the property of oneness as applied to all its parts together, and in that way being both a whole and one, being entirely. THEAETETUS: Why not? STRANGER: But is it not impossible for the thing that has this property to be, itself, the one itself? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Surely what is truly one must, by the correct account, be said to be altogether without parts. THEAETETUS: Yes, it must. STRANGER: But a thing of the sort we described, being made up of many parts, won't agree with that whole account. THEAETETUS: I follow. STRANGER: Well then, is being to have this property of the one, and so be both one and a whole—or are we to say that being is not a whole at all? THEAETETUS: You've set before me a hard choice. STRANGER: What you say is perfectly true. For if being has this property of somehow being one, it will turn out not to be the same as the one, and so the sum of all things will turn out to be more than one. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And further, if being is not a whole, because it has this property imposed on it, while the whole itself exists in its own right, then it follows that being falls short of itself. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And by this account, being, deprived of itself, will turn out not to be being at all. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And again, on this view the sum of things becomes more than one, since being and the whole have each taken on a distinct nature of their own. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: But if the whole doesn't exist at all, then the very same consequences follow for being: not only does it not exist, it could never even come to be an existing thing. THEAETETUS: Why is that? STRANGER: Whatever has come to be has always come to be as a whole; so that if one doesn't count the one or the whole among the things that are, one mustn't speak of either being or coming-to-be as really existing. THEAETETUS: That certainly seems to be so. STRANGER: And what's more, nothing that isn't a whole can have any quantity at all; for whatever quantity a thing has, that same quantity it must be, as a whole. THEAETETUS: Precisely so. STRANGER: And so countless other difficulties without end will clearly turn up, one after another, for anyone who says that being is either some two things or one thing only. THEAETETUS: What's coming into view even now shows that pretty well; each difficulty links up to another, bringing a greater and harder confusion about whatever was said before.

STRANGER: Now, we haven't gone through all those who argue with precision about being and not-being, but let what we've covered be enough. We must now look at those who speak of it differently, so that from all of them together we may see that saying what being is turns out to be no easier than saying what not-being is. THEAETETUS: Then we must go after these others too. STRANGER: And indeed, among them there seems to be a kind of battle of gods and giants going on, since they're at odds with each other over the question of what really exists. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Some of them drag everything down from the heavens and the unseen realm to earth, actually grabbing hold of rocks and oak trees with their bare hands. Laying hold of all things of this sort, they insist that only what offers resistance and can be touched really exists, since they define being and body as the very same thing, and if anyone says that something without a body exists, they despise the notion utterly and refuse to hear another word about it. THEAETETUS: You're describing some formidable men—I myself have run into plenty of that sort already. STRANGER: That's exactly why the people arguing against them defend themselves very cautiously, from somewhere up above, out of the unseen, insisting forcefully that true being consists of certain intelligible and bodiless forms; and as for the bodies of the other side, and what they call the truth, they smash it to bits in their arguments, calling it, instead of real being, some kind of shifting process of coming-to-be. And in between these two camps, Theaetetus, an endless battle is always being waged over this very question. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Well then, let's take an account from each of the two schools in turn, of the being they posit. THEAETETUS: How shall we go about getting it? STRANGER: From those who locate it in the forms it will be easier, since they're more civilized; but from those who drag everything by force into body, it will be harder, and perhaps nearly impossible. Still, this is how I think we ought to deal with them. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Best of all, if it were somehow possible, would be to actually make them better in fact; but if that can't be managed, let's do it in speech, supposing them willing to answer in a more law-abiding way than they're actually willing to now. For an agreement reached among better people carries more weight than one reached among worse ones; and in any case it isn't these people we're concerned with, but the truth we're after. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Then ask them to imagine themselves made better, and answer for them yourself, interpreting what they'd say. THEAETETUS: I'll do that. STRANGER: Well then, let them say whether they claim there is such a thing as a mortal living creature. THEAETETUS: Of course they do. STRANGER: And don't they agree that this is an ensouled body? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Thereby counting soul as one of the things that are?

THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well then — don't they say one soul is just and another unjust, one wise and another foolish? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And won't each of these come to be what it is through the possession and presence of justice, and its opposite through the presence of the opposite? THEAETETUS: Yes, they'd agree to that too. STRANGER: But surely they'll say that whatever is capable of coming to be present in something, or absent from it, is in every case something real. THEAETETUS: They will say that. STRANGER: So given that justice and wisdom and virtue generally exist, along with their opposites, and the soul in which they come to be — do they say any of these is visible and tangible, or that they're all invisible? THEAETETUS: Pretty much none of them is visible. STRANGER: And what about things of that sort — do they say they possess any body? THEAETETUS: Here they no longer answer all in the same way. They think the soul itself does possess some kind of body, but as for wisdom and each of the other things you asked about, they're ashamed either to venture that none of these things are real, or to insist that everything is a body. STRANGER: Clearly, Theaetetus, our men have grown more civilized — the ones actually sprung from the earth, born of dragon's teeth, wouldn't have been ashamed of a single one of those claims; they'd have stood their ground that whatever they can't squeeze in their fists is simply nothing at all. THEAETETUS: That's more or less what they think, yes. STRANGER: Then let's question them again. If they're willing to concede that even some small part of reality is bodiless, that's enough. For then they must say what it is that both these bodiless things and the bodily ones have in common, the thing they have in view when they call both of them 'being.' Perhaps they'll be at a loss. If that's the sort of trouble they're in, see whether, if we offer it, they'd be willing to accept and agree that reality is something like this. THEAETETUS: Like what? Tell me and we'll soon know. STRANGER: I mean this: whatever possesses any power at all, either to affect anything else, of whatever nature, or to be affected, even to the smallest degree, by the most trivial thing, and even on a single occasion — all that truly is. My proposal is that this marks the boundary defining what is real: nothing other than power. THEAETETUS: Well, since they have nothing better to offer at the moment, they accept that.

STRANGER: Good. Perhaps later something else will appear to us and to them. For now, then, let this stand as agreed between us and these people. THEAETETUS: It stands. STRANGER: Now let's go to the others, the friends of the forms. You must interpret their side of things for us as well. THEAETETUS: I'll do that. STRANGER: You people distinguish becoming from being, and treat them separately — is that right? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And you say that through the body, by means of perception, we have contact with becoming, while through reasoning, by means of the soul, we have contact with true being, which you say always remains the same in the same way, while becoming is now this way, now that. THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what we say. STRANGER: But this 'contact,' best of men — what shall we say you mean by it in both cases? Isn't it just what we said a moment ago? THEAETETUS: Which was? STRANGER: Some affecting or being affected, arising from a power exercised between things that come together with one another. Perhaps, Theaetetus, you don't catch their answer to this, but I do, from long familiarity with it. THEAETETUS: Then what argument do they give? STRANGER: They don't grant us what we just said to the earthborn men about reality. THEAETETUS: Which was? STRANGER: We set it down as a sufficient boundary of things that are, that a power be present in something, whether to be affected or to act, even to the slightest degree. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well, against this they say that becoming does have a share in the power to act and be affected, but that neither of these powers fits with being. THEAETETUS: Isn't there something in that? STRANGER: To which we must reply that we still need to learn from them more clearly whether they agree that the soul knows, and that being is known. THEAETETUS: Yes, they do say that. STRANGER: Well then — do you say that knowing or being known is an acting, or an undergoing, or both? Or is one of them an undergoing and the other something else? Or does neither of them share in either at all? THEAETETUS: Clearly neither shares in either — otherwise they'd be contradicting what they said before. STRANGER: I follow. This much is clear: if knowing is a kind of acting, then what is known must, in turn, be undergoing something. So on this account, being, insofar as it is known by knowledge, is to that same extent being moved, through undergoing something — which we say could never happen to what is at rest. THEAETETUS: Right.

STRANGER: But good heavens — shall we really so easily be persuaded that motion, life, soul, and thought have no place in that which fully is, that it neither lives nor thinks, but stands there solemn and holy, without mind, fixed and unmoving? THEAETETUS: That would be a strange thing to concede, Stranger. STRANGER: But shall we say it has thought, yet not life? THEAETETUS: How could that be? STRANGER: Or shall we say both these are in it, yet deny that it has them in a soul? THEAETETUS: How else could it possibly have them? STRANGER: Or that it has mind and life and soul, yet stands there utterly unmoved, for all its being alive? THEAETETUS: All of that seems senseless to me. STRANGER: Then what moves, and motion itself, must also be granted to be, as things that are. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And so it follows, Theaetetus, that if things were unmoving, mind would belong to no one about anything, anywhere. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And yet again, if we grant that everything is in motion and flux, by this same argument we'll be removing this very thing from the realm of what is. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Does it seem to you that sameness, being in the same state and about the same thing, could ever come about apart from rest? THEAETETUS: Not at all. STRANGER: And again, without these, do you see how mind could exist, or come to exist, anywhere at all? THEAETETUS: Hardly. STRANGER: And yet we must fight with every argument we have against anyone who, by doing away with knowledge or thought or mind, insists on anything whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: So it seems the philosopher, who honors these things above all, is bound, for this very reason, neither to accept from those who speak of the one, or of many forms, that the whole stands still, nor to listen at all to those who set what is in motion in every way — but, like a child praying for both at once, must say that being and the whole together are both what is unmoved and what is in motion. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Well then — don't we now seem to have made a fair circuit of what is, in our argument? THEAETETUS: We certainly do. STRANGER: Ah, but Theaetetus — I think we're now about to discover just how baffling the inquiry into it really is. THEAETETUS: How so? What do you mean by that? STRANGER: My good man, don't you see that at this very moment we're in the deepest ignorance about it, even though we seem to ourselves to be saying something? THEAETETUS: To me, at least. But just how we've fallen into this state without noticing, I don't quite understand.

STRANGER: Then let's look more closely and see whether, agreeing to what we now agree to, we wouldn't fairly be asked the very questions we ourselves once put to those who said the whole was hot and cold. THEAETETUS: What questions? Remind me. STRANGER: By all means — and I'll try to do it by questioning you, just as we questioned them then, so that we make some progress at the same time. THEAETETUS: Good. STRANGER: Well then: don't you say motion and rest are the most complete opposites of one another? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And yet you say both of them equally are, and each of them is? THEAETETUS: Yes, I do say that. STRANGER: Do you mean, when you grant that they are, that both of them, and each of them, are in motion? THEAETETUS: Certainly not. STRANGER: Or do you mean, in saying both of them are, that they're at rest? THEAETETUS: How could I mean that? STRANGER: So you're positing being as some third thing over and above these, on the understanding that rest and motion are both embraced by it, and grasping them together, looking to their communion with being, you called both of them, in that sense, 'are'? THEAETETUS: It really does look as though we're divining being to be some third thing, when we say motion and rest are. STRANGER: Then being is not motion and rest taken together, but something else, distinct from both. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: Then, by its own nature, being neither rests nor moves. THEAETETUS: More or less. STRANGER: Where, then, must someone turn his thought who wants to establish something clear and certain about it in his own mind? THEAETETUS: Where indeed? STRANGER: I don't think there's any easy place left. For if a thing doesn't move, how is it not at rest? And what isn't at rest at all — how, again, is it not in motion? Yet being has now shown itself to us to be outside both of these. Is that even possible? THEAETETUS: Nothing could be more impossible. STRANGER: Then it's fair to recall this point as well. THEAETETUS: What point? STRANGER: That when we were asked to what we should apply the name 'not-being,' we were caught in utter perplexity. Do you remember? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Well, are we now in any less perplexity about being? THEAETETUS: To me, Stranger, if it's even possible to say so, we seem to be in even more.

STRANGER: Let this, then, stand here as thoroughly perplexed. But since being and not-being have come in for an equal share of difficulty, there's now some hope that as one of them comes to light more dimly or more clearly, the other will come to light in just the same way; and if we're able to see neither, then at least we'll push our account through between the two of them, in whatever way we can manage most gracefully. THEAETETUS: Good. STRANGER: Let's say, then, in what way it is that we call this same thing by many names on each occasion. THEAETETUS: Like what? Give an example. STRANGER: We speak of 'man,' surely, while applying to him many further names — we attach colors to him, and shapes, and sizes, and vices and virtues, and in all these, and countless others besides, we say not only that he is a man, but also that he is good, and countless other things; and in just the same way, on this same principle, having posited each thing as one, we turn around and speak of it as many, and by many names. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And that, I think, is how we've prepared quite a feast for the young, and for those old men who take up learning late in life. For anyone can immediately seize on the objection that it's impossible for the many to be one and the one many, and they take delight, of course, in refusing to let us say a man is good, but insisting the good is good and the man is man. You run into people like this often enough, I think, Theaetetus — sometimes fairly old men, who through the poverty of their own understanding marvel at such things, and even imagine they've discovered in this some great piece of wisdom. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then, so that our argument may apply to everyone who has ever discussed being in any way at all, let what we're about to say now be addressed, in the form of a question, both to these people and to all the others we've conversed with before. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: Should we refuse to attach motion and rest to being, or anything else to anything else, and instead treat them in our arguments as unmixable, incapable of sharing in one another? Or should we bring everything together into one, as capable of association with each other? Or some things yes, others no? Which of these, Theaetetus, shall we say they would choose? THEAETETUS: I have no answer to give on their behalf. STRANGER: Then why not answer point by point yourself, and examine what follows in each case? THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: And let's have them say, if you like, first, that nothing has any power of association with anything else, for any purpose. In that case, won't motion and rest have no share in being at all?

THEAETETUS: No, indeed. STRANGER: Well then—will either of them exist without partaking of being? THEAETETUS: It will not. STRANGER: Then by this agreement everything has quickly been turned upside down, it seems—both those who set the whole universe in motion, and those who hold it fixed as one, and all who say that the things that are exist forever, always the same, in the same state, according to their forms. For all of them attach being to their view—some saying things really are in motion, others that they really stand still. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And further, those who at one time compose all things and at another divide them—whether into one and out of one into infinitely many, or dividing into elements that are finite in number and composing out of those, whether they suppose this happens by turns or that it happens always—in all these cases they would be saying nothing at all, if there is no mixture whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: And beyond that, the people who allow nothing to be addressed as other by association with a different affection would pursue their argument in the most laughable way of all. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Because they're forced to use, in speaking of everything, the words 'is,' and 'apart,' and 'of the others,' and 'in itself,' and countless other such terms—unable to keep away from them and refrain from linking them in their arguments, they need no one else to refute them; they carry their own enemy inside, as the saying goes, an opponent muttering within them wherever they go, like that absurd fellow Eurycles. THEAETETUS: That's exactly right, and true too. STRANGER: But what if we allow that all things have the power of association with one another? THEAETETUS: That I can refute myself. STRANGER: How? THEAETETUS: Because motion itself would come to a complete stop, and rest in turn would itself be in motion, if each came to be present in the other. STRANGER: But surely that, by the strongest necessity, is impossible—that motion should come to rest and rest be in motion? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So only the third possibility remains. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And indeed one of these must be so: either all things mix, or none, or some are willing to combine and others not. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And the first two have been found impossible. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So anyone who wants to answer correctly will adopt the remaining one of the three. THEAETETUS: Quite so.

STRANGER: Since some things, then, are willing to do this and others not, they're presumably in much the same condition as letters. Some of these don't fit together with each other, while others do. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But the vowels, unlike the rest, run through all of them like a bond, so that without one of them it's impossible for the others to fit together with each other either. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Now does everyone know which letters can combine with which, or does the person who means to do this properly need a skill? THEAETETUS: A skill. STRANGER: What skill? THEAETETUS: The skill of grammar. STRANGER: And what about high and low sounds—isn't it the same there? The person who has the skill to recognize which sounds blend and which don't is a musician, while the one who doesn't understand this is unmusical. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And we'll find similar things in the case of the other skills and non-skills. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Well then—since we've also agreed that the kinds stand toward one another in the same way as regards mixing, isn't it necessary for anyone who means to show correctly which kinds harmonize with which, and which will not admit each other, to proceed through his arguments with some kind of knowledge? And also to know whether there are certain kinds that run through all of them, holding them together, so that they're capable of mixing, and again, in cases of division, whether there are other causes running through wholes responsible for the dividing? THEAETETUS: Of course knowledge is needed—and probably the greatest kind of knowledge. STRANGER: Then what shall we call this now, Theaetetus? Or, good heavens, have we stumbled unawares into the knowledge of free people, and are we in danger, in our search for the sophist, of having found the philosopher first? THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Won't we say that dividing things by kind, and neither taking the same form to be different, nor a different one to be the same, belongs to the science of dialectic? THEAETETUS: Yes, we'll say that. STRANGER: So whoever is capable of doing this discerns adequately one single form spread out through many things, each one lying apart from the others, and many forms differing from one another but embraced from outside by one form, and again one form connected as a unity throughout many wholes, and many forms marked off from one another, entirely separate. This is knowing how to distinguish, kind by kind, in what way each thing can associate and in what way it cannot. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: And surely you won't grant the power of dialectic to anyone, I imagine, except the one who philosophizes purely and justly. THEAETETUS: How could one grant it to anyone else?

STRANGER: We'll find the philosopher, then, both now and later, if we look for him, in some such place as this—though he too is hard to see clearly; yet the difficulty in his case is of a different kind from that of the sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: The sophist escapes into the darkness of what-is-not, feeling his way about there by practice, and because the place is dark, he's hard to make out. Isn't that right? THEAETETUS: It seems so. STRANGER: But the philosopher, always attached through reasoning to the form of what is, is anything but easy to see, because of the brightness of the region; for the eyes of the soul of the many cannot bear to keep gazing steadily at what is divine. THEAETETUS: That's likely to be no less true of him than of the other. STRANGER: Well, we'll look into that more clearly later, perhaps, if we still care to; but as for the sophist, it's clear we mustn't let up until we've gotten a good enough look at him. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: Since we've agreed, then, that some of the kinds are willing to associate with one another and some not, and some to a small extent, others to a great extent, while still others run through all and there's nothing to prevent their associating with everything—let's follow up on the argument next by considering, not all the forms, so we don't get confused among a great many, but by picking out some of the ones called the greatest, first what sort of thing each of them is, and then how their power of association with one another stands, so that even if we can't grasp being and not-being with complete clarity, at least we won't come away lacking any account of them, so far as the method of our present inquiry allows—if indeed it should turn out that we're permitted somehow to get off unpunished for saying that what-is-not really and truly is not-being. THEAETETUS: Well, we must. STRANGER: Now the greatest of the kinds we've just gone through are being itself, and rest, and motion. THEAETETUS: By far. STRANGER: And we say that two of these are unmixable with each other. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: But being is mixed with both, since presumably both of them are. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So these become three. THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And each of them is different from the other two, but the same as itself. THEAETETUS: Just so.

STRANGER: Now what exactly do we mean this time by 'the same' and 'the different'? Are these two kinds distinct from the three, yet necessarily mixed with them always, so that we must consider five things rather than three as existing—or, without noticing it, are we calling one of those three by the names 'the same' and 'the different'? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But surely motion and rest are neither the different nor the same. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Whatever we call by a term common to both motion and rest, that cannot be either one of them. THEAETETUS: Why not? STRANGER: Because then motion would come to rest, and rest in turn would be in motion; for whichever of the two the other became, it would force it to change over to the opposite of its own nature, since it would have come to share in the opposite. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Yet both of them do share in the same and the different. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Then let's not say that motion is the same, or the different, nor rest either. THEAETETUS: No, let's not. STRANGER: But then must we think of being and the same as one single thing? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But if being and the same signify nothing different, then when we say that both motion and rest are, we'll thereby be calling them both the same, on the grounds that they exist. THEAETETUS: But that's surely impossible. STRANGER: Then it's impossible for the same and being to be one thing. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: Shall we then posit the same as a fourth form alongside the three? THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: And what about the different—must we call it a fifth? Or should we think of this and being as two names applying to one kind? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But I think you'll agree that among the things that are, some are said to be just what they are in themselves, while others are always spoken of in relation to other things. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And the different is always relative to something different, isn't it? THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: That wouldn't be so if being and the different weren't very far apart; but if the different partook of both forms the way being does, then there would at some point be something different that was different not in relation to anything different—yet as it stands, it turns out for us that whatever is different, is necessarily just what it is by being different from something. THEAETETUS: You put it exactly as it stands. STRANGER: Then we must say that the nature of the different is a fifth among the forms we're choosing to consider. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we'll say that it runs through all of them; for each one is different from the rest, not because of its own nature, but because it partakes of the character of the different. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Let's put it this way, then, taking the five one by one. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: First, motion—that it's entirely different from rest. Or how else should we put it? THEAETETUS: That's how. STRANGER: So it is not rest. THEAETETUS: Not at all.

STRANGER: Yet it is, because it partakes of being. THEAETETUS: It is. STRANGER: And again, motion is different from the same. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: So it is not the same. THEAETETUS: No, indeed. STRANGER: And yet it was the same, because everything partakes of that too. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: We must agree, then, that motion is both the same and not the same, and not be troubled by that. For when we call it the same and not the same, we're not speaking in the same sense; rather, when we call it the same, we say so because of its participation in the same in relation to itself, but when we call it not the same, that's due, in turn, to its association with the different, by which it's separated off from the same and has become not that, but something different—so that it's correctly called, once again, not the same. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And so, even if motion itself somehow partook of rest, there would be nothing strange in calling it stationary? THEAETETUS: Perfectly right—provided we're going to grant that some of the kinds are willing to mix with one another, and others not. STRANGER: And indeed we arrived at the proof of that point earlier, before the present ones, showing that this is how things stand by nature. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Let's say it again, then: motion is different from the different, just as it was other than the same and other than rest? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. STRANGER: So it is, in a sense, both not different and different, by the argument just given. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Well, what follows from this? Shall we say it's different from three of the kinds, but not say so of the fourth, once we've agreed there are five that we set out to examine? THEAETETUS: How could we? It's impossible to grant a smaller number than the one that's just come to light. STRANGER: Shall we then contend fearlessly that motion is different from being? THEAETETUS: Yes, quite fearlessly. STRANGER: So it's clear, then, that motion really is both not-being and being, since it partakes of being? THEAETETUS: Perfectly clear. STRANGER: So it's necessary that what-is-not exists, in the case of motion and throughout all the kinds; for in every case the nature of the different, making each thing different from being, makes it not-being, and we'll be right to say that in this same way all of them, collectively, are not-being, and again, because they partake of being, that they are and have being. THEAETETUS: That does seem to be the case. STRANGER: So concerning each of the forms, there is much that is being, and an unlimited amount, in number, that is not-being. THEAETETUS: So it seems.

STRANGER: Then we must also say that being itself is different from everything else. THEAETETUS: It must be. STRANGER: And so being, for us, is not — in just as many ways as there are other things. For those other things, not being it, are each one thing, being itself, while the rest, unlimited in number, are in turn not that one thing. THEAETETUS: Something like that, yes. STRANGER: Well then, we shouldn't be troubled by this either, since the nature of the kinds does admit of association with one another. If someone won't grant this, let him first win over our earlier arguments, and only then try to win over what comes after. THEAETETUS: That's perfectly fair. STRANGER: Let's look at this too. THEAETETUS: At what? STRANGER: Whenever we speak of what is not, it seems we're not naming something opposite to what is, but only something different. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: For instance, when we say something is not large — does it seem to you that we're pointing more toward the small than toward the equal, by that phrase? THEAETETUS: Of course not. STRANGER: So we won't agree that when a negation is spoken it signifies an opposite — only this much, that the 'not' and the 'non-' placed in front of the words that follow point to something different from the things — or rather, different among the things — that the names spoken after the negation refer to. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Let's think about this too, if you agree. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: The nature of the different seems to me to be parceled out, just like knowledge. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Knowledge too is, I suppose, one thing, yet each part of it that applies to some particular subject gets marked off and acquires a name of its own; that's why there are said to be many arts and many branches of knowledge. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And the parts of the nature of the different, though it too is one, undergo this same thing. THEAETETUS: Perhaps — but where are we going with this? STRANGER: Is there some part of the different set over against the beautiful? THEAETETUS: There is. STRANGER: Shall we call it nameless, or does it have some name of its own? THEAETETUS: It has one — whatever we call not-beautiful on any occasion is nothing but something different from the nature of the beautiful. STRANGER: Now tell me this. THEAETETUS: What? STRANGER: Isn't it the case that the not-beautiful turns out to be just this — something marked off from one particular kind among the things that are, and set over against some other one of the things that are? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So the not-beautiful turns out to be, it seems, a kind of opposition of one being to another being. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then? By this reasoning, is the beautiful any more one of the things that are, and the not-beautiful any less? THEAETETUS: Not at all.

STRANGER: So we must say that the not-large and the large itself are, in the same way, both things that are? THEAETETUS: In the same way. STRANGER: And mustn't we set down the not-just alongside the just on the very same footing, so that neither is any more a thing that is than the other? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And we'll say the same of everything else, since the nature of the different has shown itself to be one of the things that are; and since it is, its parts too must be set down as being, no less than anything else. THEAETETUS: How could it be otherwise? STRANGER: So it seems that the opposition between the nature of a part of the different and the nature of being — when they're set over against each other — is, if we may put it this way, no less a form of being than being itself is; it doesn't signify the opposite of being, but only this much: something different from it. THEAETETUS: That's perfectly clear. STRANGER: Then what shall we call it? THEAETETUS: Clearly this is just what is not, which we were hunting for on account of the sophist. STRANGER: So is it, as you said, lacking in being no less than any of the others, and should we now boldly say that what is not firmly has its own nature, just as the large was large and the beautiful was beautiful, the not-large was not-large and the not-beautiful was not-beautiful — and in just the same way, what is not, was and is, not being — one form counted among the many things that are? Or do we still have some doubt about this, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: None at all. STRANGER: Do you realize, then, that we've disobeyed Parmenides rather more thoroughly than his prohibition allowed? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: He forbade us to investigate further than he did, and we've pressed on and shown him something beyond that. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: He says somewhere — 'for never shall this be forced through, that things that are not, are; hold back your thought from this path of inquiry' — THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what he says. STRANGER: But we haven't merely shown that the things that are not, are — we've gone further and revealed just what form it is that what is not happens to be. For having shown that the nature of the different is a being, parceled out over all the things that are in relation to one another, we've dared to say that each part of it, set over against being, just is — really and truly — what is not. THEAETETUS: And I think, Stranger, what we've said is absolutely true.

STRANGER: So let no one accuse us of daring to say that what is not, is, by declaring it the opposite of being. We long ago gave up talk of anything opposite to being — whether or not such a thing exists, and whether or not it's even a coherent notion. But as for what we've now called not-being, either someone must refute us and persuade us that we're wrong, or, so long as he can't, he must say what we say: that the kinds mingle with one another, and that being and the different, having passed through all things and through one another, mean that the different, by partaking of being, is — through that participation — but is not that very thing it partakes of, only something different from it; and being different from being, it clearly must, of necessity, be what is not. And being in turn, having a share of the different, would be different from all the other kinds, and being different from every one of them, it is not any one of them, nor all of them together except itself — so that being, beyond all dispute, in countless ways is not, and likewise everything else, each taken separately and all taken together, in many ways is, and in many ways is not. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And if anyone doubts these very oppositions, let him look into it himself and come up with something better than what's been said now; but if he thinks he's found something difficult and enjoys dragging the argument now this way, now that, he's been laboring over something not worth much effort, as our present discussion shows. For that's neither clever nor hard to find; the other thing is what's both hard and fine. THEAETETUS: What thing? STRANGER: What was said before — to be able to let all this stand as granted, and then follow along, testing point by point, whenever someone claims that the different is somehow the same, or the same is different, in the very respect and manner in which he claims it undergoes this. But to show that the same is, in some loose way, different, and the different is the same, and the large is small, and the like is unlike, and to take delight in always producing such contraries in argument — that's no genuine refutation, but plainly a newborn attempt by someone who has only just now laid hold of some one of the things that are. THEAETETUS: Exactly so. STRANGER: For indeed, my friend, to try to separate everything from everything else is, apart from anything else, tasteless, and altogether the mark of someone uncultured and unphilosophical. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: To dissolve each thing away from everything else is the most complete abolition of all discourse whatsoever; for it's through the interweaving of the forms with one another that discourse has come to exist for us. THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: So consider how timely it was, just now, that we fought against people who say such things, and forced them to allow that one thing may mingle with another. THEAETETUS: Toward what end, though? STRANGER: Toward the end that discourse should be, for us, one of the kinds among the things that are. For if we were deprived of this, we'd be deprived of the greatest thing — philosophy itself. And besides, right now we need to come to an agreement about what discourse actually is; if it had been taken from us entirely, we wouldn't be able to say anything at all any more. And it would have been taken from us, if we'd conceded that there's no mixing whatsoever, of anything with anything. THEAETETUS: That's right — but I haven't understood why we need to settle the question of discourse just now. STRANGER: Well, perhaps you'll grasp it most easily if you follow along this way. THEAETETUS: Which way? STRANGER: What is not has turned out, for us, to be one particular kind among the others, scattered throughout all the things that are. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: So the next thing to examine is whether it mingles with belief and with discourse. THEAETETUS: Why is that? STRANGER: Because if it doesn't mingle with these, then everything must be true; but if it does mingle, then false belief comes to be, and false discourse — for to believe or say things that are not, that, I take it, is falsehood arising in thought and in speech. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And where falsehood is, there is deception. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And where deception is, everything must at once be full of images and likenesses and appearance. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And we said the sophist had taken refuge in just this territory, but then flatly denied that falsehood exists at all — on the grounds that no one can even think or say what is not, since what is not has no share whatsoever in being. THEAETETUS: That's what we said. STRANGER: But now this has been shown to have a share in being, so that on that score he presumably won't fight us any longer. But he might well say instead that some of the forms partake of what is not, and others don't, and that discourse and belief are among those that don't partake of it — so that he'd fight all over again for the image-making and appearance-making art, which we say he belongs to, claiming it doesn't exist at all, on the grounds that belief and discourse have no communion with what is not; since if that communion isn't established, falsehood is altogether nonexistent.

STRANGER: For this reason, then, we must first track down what discourse, belief, and appearance actually are, so that once they come into view, we may see their communion with what is not — and having seen it, prove that falsehood exists — and having proved that, bind the sophist up in it, if indeed he's guilty of it, or else release him and go hunting in some other kind. THEAETETUS: It really does seem true, Stranger, what was said at the start about the sophist — that his kind is hard to hunt down. He seems positively stuffed with problems, and whenever he throws one out, we first have to fight our way through it before we can even get to the man himself. Just now we barely managed to force our way through the claim that what is not, is not; and now another problem has been thrown down, and we have to prove that falsehood exists, both in discourse and in belief — and after that perhaps another, and after that one still another. There seems to be no end in sight, ever. STRANGER: One should take heart, Theaetetus, if one is able to make even a little headway. What could a man who loses heart in matters like these do in others, if he either makes no progress in them or is even pushed back? Such a man, as the saying goes, will hardly ever take a city. But now, my friend, since we've gotten through what you mentioned, the biggest wall of all has, in effect, been taken; the rest from here on is easier and smaller. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: Let's first take up discourse and belief, as I just said, so that we can reckon more clearly whether what is not touches them, or whether both are altogether true and neither is ever false. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Come then — just as we spoke about the forms and the letters, let's examine names in the same way again. That seems to be the direction in which our present inquiry points. THEAETETUS: Then what exactly must we look into concerning names? STRANGER: Whether all of them fit together with one another, or none do, or some are willing to while others aren't. THEAETETUS: That much is clear — some are willing, some aren't. STRANGER: Perhaps you mean something like this: that words spoken in sequence and expressing something fit together, while those that signify nothing by their continuity don't fit. THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: What I thought you'd already grasped and agreed to. For we have, I think, two kinds among the vocal expressions that concern being. THEAETETUS: How so?

STRANGER: One kind is called names, the other verbs. THEAETETUS: Explain each. STRANGER: The sign that applies to actions we call, I think, a verb. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the vocal sign set upon the very things that perform those actions is a name. THEAETETUS: Exactly so. STRANGER: So a statement can never be made out of names alone strung together, nor again out of verbs spoken without names. THEAETETUS: I don't follow that. STRANGER: Clearly you agreed just now with something else in mind, since what I meant to say was just this: that a string of words spoken this way is not a statement. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: Take 'walks,' 'runs,' 'sleeps,' and all the other verbs that signify actions — even if you say every one of them in a row, no statement results. THEAETETUS: No, of course not. STRANGER: And again when someone says 'lion,' 'deer,' 'horse,' and all the names given to those who perform such actions, no statement is put together by that kind of string either. In neither case do the sounds spoken indicate any action or inaction, or the being of what is or of what is not, until someone mixes verbs in with the names. Then they fit together, and the very first combination becomes a statement at once — pretty much the first and shortest of statements. THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: When someone says 'man learns,' do you say this is a statement, the shortest and first one? THEAETETUS: I do. STRANGER: Because at that point it indicates something about things that are, or are coming to be, or have come to be, or are going to be — it doesn't just name something, but achieves something, by weaving verbs together with names. That's why we say he 'speaks' rather than merely 'names,' and it's to this weaving that we gave the name 'statement.' THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: So then, just as some things fit together with each other and some don't, likewise with the signs of speech: some don't fit, but those that do fit produce a statement. THEAETETUS: Exactly. STRANGER: Now one more small point. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: A statement, whenever it occurs, must necessarily be a statement of something; it can't fail to be of something. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And mustn't it also be of some particular quality? THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: Let's pay close attention to ourselves now. THEAETETUS: We must. STRANGER: I'll speak a statement to you, combining a thing with an action by means of a name and a verb — and you tell me what it's about.

THEAETETUS: I'll do that as best I can. STRANGER: 'Theaetetus sits.' Surely that's not a long statement? THEAETETUS: No, a modest one. STRANGER: It's your job now to say what it's about, and whose it is. THEAETETUS: Clearly it's about me, and it's mine. STRANGER: And what about this one? THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: 'Theaetetus, with whom I am now conversing, flies.' THEAETETUS: That one too — no one could say it's about anything or anyone but me. STRANGER: We say each statement must be of some particular quality. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So what quality must we assign to each of these two? THEAETETUS: One false, I suppose, and the other true. STRANGER: And the true one states the things that are, as they are, about you. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: While the false one states things other than the things that are. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So it states things that are not as though they are. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: But it states them as being different things that are, about you. For we said that many things that are, are true of each thing, and many that are not. THEAETETUS: Exactly right. STRANGER: Now the second statement I made about you — first of all, from what we determined a statement to be, it's necessarily one of the shortest possible. THEAETETUS: We just agreed to that. STRANGER: And second, it's of something. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And if it isn't of you, it's of nothing else at all. THEAETETUS: Of course not. STRANGER: And if it were of nothing, it wouldn't be a statement at all — we showed that a statement being of nothing was impossible. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: So, being said about you, but saying different things as though they were the same, and things that are not as though they are — a combination of this kind, made up of verbs and names, really and truly turns out to be a false statement. THEAETETUS: Most true. STRANGER: Now then — thought, judgment, and appearance: isn't it already clear that these all arise in our souls, both false and true alike? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: You'll see it more easily this way, if you first grasp what each of them is, and how they differ from one another. THEAETETUS: Just give me the account. STRANGER: Thought and statement are the same thing, except that the inner dialogue of the soul with itself, occurring without sound — that very thing is what we've named thought. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And the stream from that which goes out through the mouth with sound is called statement? THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And further, we know that statements contain — STRANGER: What? STRANGER: Affirmation and denial. THEAETETUS: We know that.

STRANGER: So when this occurs in the soul, silently, according to thought, is there anything you could call it besides judgment? THEAETETUS: How could there be? STRANGER: And when it's present in someone not on its own but through perception, could that condition rightly be called anything other than appearance? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: So then, since statement was shown to be true and false, and among these, thought turned out to be the soul's own dialogue with itself, judgment the conclusion of thought, and what we call appearance a blend of perception and judgment — it follows necessarily that, being akin to statement, some of these too are, at times, false. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Do you see, then, that false judgment and false statement were found earlier than we expected, when we were afraid just now that we might be undertaking an utterly hopeless task in searching for it? THEAETETUS: I see. STRANGER: Let's not lose heart, then, about what remains either. Now that these things have come to light, let's recall the divisions we made earlier by kind. THEAETETUS: Which ones? STRANGER: We divided image-making into two kinds, the likeness-making kind and the appearance-making kind. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we said we were at a loss which of the two to place the sophist in. THEAETETUS: That's right. STRANGER: And while we were at a loss over that, an even greater dizziness poured over us, when the argument appeared that disputes against everyone, saying that no likeness or image or appearance exists at all, because falsehood never in any way, at any time, anywhere exists. THEAETETUS: What you say is true. STRANGER: But now, since statement has been shown to exist, and judgment has been shown to be capable of falsehood, there's room for there to be imitations of things that are, and for an art of deception to arise from this condition. THEAETETUS: There is room. STRANGER: And that the sophist was one or the other of these two, we had already agreed earlier. THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: Let's try again, then, splitting the proposed kind in two, and proceeding always along the right-hand part of what's been cut, keeping hold of the sophist's company, until, having stripped away everything he shares with others and left behind his own proper nature, we display it — first to ourselves, and then to those most naturally suited to this kind of method. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Well then, didn't we start by dividing productive art and acquisitive art? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And under acquisitive art he appeared to us in hunting, in contests, in trade, and in certain kinds like these? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: But now that the imitative art has closed around him, clearly productive art itself must first be divided in two. For imitation is surely a kind of production — of images, though, we say, not of the things themselves in each case. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Let productive art, then, first have two parts. THEAETETUS: Which two? STRANGER: The divine and the human. THEAETETUS: I haven't yet understood. STRANGER: Productive art, if we remember what was said at the start, we called every power that is responsible for things not previously existing coming to be afterward. THEAETETUS: We remember. STRANGER: All mortal living things, then, and plants too, whatever grows on earth from seeds and roots, and whatever soulless bodies form in the earth, meltable and unmeltable — shall we say these come to be afterward, not having existed before, through the craftsmanship of anyone but a god? Or, using the belief and language of the majority — THEAETETUS: Which is that? STRANGER: That nature generates them from some spontaneous cause, growing without thought — or that they come to be through reason and divine knowledge, proceeding from a god? THEAETETUS: Perhaps because of my age I often shift back and forth between the two opinions; but right now, looking at you and supposing that you believe they come to be by a god's doing, I've come to believe that too, myself. STRANGER: Well said, Theaetetus. And if we thought you were one of those who in time to come would judge otherwise, we would now try, through argument backed by necessary persuasion, to make you agree. But since I can see your nature — that even without arguments from us it will move on its own toward the very position you now say you're drawn to — I'll let it be; time would be wasted for nothing. Instead I'll take it that the things said to be by nature are made by divine craft, and the things composed out of these by human beings are made by human craft, and according to this account there are two kinds of production, the one human, the other divine. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Now cut each of the two in half again. THEAETETUS: How?

STRANGER: As if you were cutting the whole of productive art before along its breadth, and now again along its length. THEAETETUS: Consider it cut. STRANGER: So then there come to be four parts of it in all — two on our side, human, and two again on the gods' side, divine. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And divided the other way, one part from each of the two divisions is a making of the things themselves, while the remaining two might best be called image-making; and so productive art is again divided in two along these lines. THEAETETUS: Tell me how each divides again. STRANGER: We ourselves, I take it, and the other living things, and the things out of which natural things are made — fire and water and their kin — we know that all of these are, each of them, brought about as products of a god. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: So it is. STRANGER: And attending upon each of these are images, not the things themselves, and these too have come about by a kind of divine contrivance. THEAETETUS: Such as what? STRANGER: The images in dreams, and all the apparitions said to arise naturally in the daytime — a shadow, whenever darkness arises within fire-light, and the doubled image, whenever a thing's own light and a foreign light come together as one around bright, smooth surfaces and produce an appearance that gives a sense contrary to our ordinary way of seeing. THEAETETUS: Yes, for these are two works of divine production, the thing itself and the image that accompanies each thing. STRANGER: And what of our own art? Shall we not say that it makes a house itself by house-building, but by painting makes another sort of thing, a kind of man-made dream produced for people who are awake? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And likewise all the rest, in pairs, are twofold products of our productive activity — the thing itself, we say, by an art of direct production, and the image, by an art of image-making. THEAETETUS: Now I understand better, and I'll set down two kinds of production, each divided in two: divine and human, by the one cut; and by the other, one part of each being the thing itself, the other the offspring of certain likenesses. STRANGER: Let's recall, then, that of the image-making art one kind was to be the likeness-making, the other the appearance-making — if falsehood, being truly falsehood, should turn out to be one of the things that are, by its very nature. THEAETETUS: So it was. STRANGER: And it did turn out so, and because of this we can now count these as two kinds, beyond dispute. THEAETETUS: Yes.

STRANGER: Now let's divide image-making itself into two again. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: One kind happens through instruments, the other by the maker offering his own body as the instrument for producing the likeness. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: When someone uses his own body to make it resemble your shape, or his voice to make it sound like your voice, that particular sort of image-making is generally called imitation. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Let's mark this off and call it the imitative branch of image-making, and let the rest go — we'll be lazy about it and leave it to someone else to gather into one and give a fitting name. THEAETETUS: Let's divide off the one and drop the other. STRANGER: But this too, Theaetetus, deserves to be thought of as double. See why. THEAETETUS: Go on. STRANGER: Of those who imitate, some know what they're imitating, others don't. And what division could we set up bigger than the one between knowing and not knowing? THEAETETUS: None. STRANGER: Now the case just mentioned was imitation by people who know — someone could only imitate your shape and you yourself by recognizing you. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But what about the shape of justice, and of virtue as a whole? Don't a great many people, without knowing it but with some opinion about it, throw themselves eagerly into making it appear that they possess what they merely believe they have, imitating it as hard as they can in both deed and word? THEAETETUS: Yes, a great many indeed. STRANGER: And do all of them fail to seem just when they aren't just at all? Or is it quite the opposite? THEAETETUS: Quite the opposite. STRANGER: So we should call this one a different kind of imitator from the other — the ignorant one as distinct from the knowing one. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Then where will each of them get a fitting name? Or is it obviously hard, because, it seems, some ancient laziness and lack of reflection kept earlier thinkers from even attempting to divide kinds into their forms — which is exactly why names aren't readily available for us either. Still, even if it's a bold thing to say, for the sake of distinguishing them let's call imitation joined with opinion 'opinion-imitation,' and the kind joined with knowledge some sort of 'knowledge-based imitation.' THEAETETUS: Agreed. STRANGER: Well, it's the first one we need — the sophist wasn't among those who know, but precisely among those who imitate. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Let's examine this opinion-imitator, then, the way you'd examine a piece of iron, to see whether he's sound or still has some flaw running through him. THEAETETUS: Let's examine him.

STRANGER: Well, he has a considerable flaw. One kind of him is simple-minded, thinking he knows the very things he only has opinions about. The other kind, because of all his tumbling about in arguments, is full of suspicion and fear that he's ignorant of the very things he has postured before others as knowing. THEAETETUS: There certainly is a kind of each that you've described. STRANGER: So shall we call the one a simple imitator, and the other an ironic imitator? THEAETETUS: That seems reasonable. STRANGER: And of this second one, shall we say his kind is one, or two? THEAETETUS: You look and see. STRANGER: I'm looking, and two distinct types appear to me. I can make out one who is capable of playing the ironist in public, before crowds, in long speeches, and another who does it privately, in short speeches, forcing the person he's talking with to contradict himself. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Then what shall we declare the one who talks at length to be? A statesman, or a popular speaker? THEAETETUS: A popular speaker. STRANGER: And what shall we call the other one? Wise, or a sophist? THEAETETUS: Well, wise is impossible, since we've established that he doesn't actually know; but since he's an imitator of the wise man, clearly he'll get some name derived from that one — and I think I've now more or less learned that we must truly call him that very person, the sophist through and through. STRANGER: So shall we bind his name together, as before, weaving it from end to beginning? THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: The imitative part of the contradiction-making branch of the ironic side of the opinion-based part of the image-making kind — that portion of human, not divine, production which is marked off within speeches as the wonder-working branch — whoever says that this lineage and blood is where the true sophist comes from will, it seems, be saying the truest thing. THEAETETUS: Absolutely.

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